Acording to T.C, the Konnekt 24D and Konnekt 8 are the exact same thing except for the DSP´s/Fabrik C, R, Asimilator and I/O´s on the Konnekt 24D.
The Konnekt 8 dose not have DSP´s, Fabrik C, R and Asimilator plug-in. It has less I/O´s and no Toslink. That´s the difference between the K24D and K8, other then that, they are the same thing.
If your gonna use the Konnekt 8 just for conversion, I think its gonna work just fine, as the rest of its options. For some folks, the converters are up to par with the Fireface if that makes you fell better...
The Konnekt links to PC/Mac via firewire and the TCNear driver. You can also link up to 4 Konnekts in a firewire chain. They also work as stand-alone. So you do need a firewire OCHI compelent port. My chip is not TI and it works with a generic OCHI controler, I guess if you get a TI chip based port, then more then better.
If you do get a firewire card, make sure that it´s not a combo card, as for some reason issues arise with combo cards and some PC´s.
You dont need another sound card like the Emu 1212m to connect to. The Konnekt it´s self is a sound card/Interface and it´s connection is done via firewire transfer protocol to PC.
If you do have any doughts, I suggets you contact the T.C support team with your PC config. and intention. They have answerd and help me in the past and are of great help. I also recomend you download the Konnekt manual from there web site to get a better picture of what the Konnekt can do or not.
How do you plan to hook-up your hardware reverb to the Konnekt? Dose it have S/PDIF I/O or Toslink? As I don´t know if you can use your hardware reverb as send/return or Insert on the Konnekt, you should ask T.C. I use my T.C M-One XL via S/PDIF I/O on the Konnekt 24D.
Hope it helps,
Good care.